When Steven Spielberg goes sci-fi, I’m always interested. Unless it’s sci-fi where sci-fi shouldn’t be, like that last “Indiana Jones” movie, but let’s not talk about that. Anyways, it’s officially official: Spielberg will direct “Robopocalypse” as his next movie, with the film scheduled for July 3, 2013 — just in time to cash in on the July 4th weekend.

Daniel H Wilson, author of such lifesaving works as “How to Survive a Robot Uprising: Tips on Defending Yourself Against the Coming Rebellion”, “Where’s My Jetpack?: A Guide to the Amazing Science Fiction Future That Never Arrived”, “How To Build a Robot Army: Tips on Defending Planet Earth Against Aliens, Ninjas, and Zombies” and “The Mad Scientist Hall of Fame: Muwahahaha!” is ratcheting away on his latest opus “Robopocalypse” (due next year), an effort to realistically depict the day when your Roomba starts sucking on more than your dust bunnies.

Dreamworks and Doubleday have acquired the film rights to Daniel H. Wilson’s as yet unpublished book “Robopocalypse”, about how humans deal after the robots take over. Daniel H. Wilson is a robotics engineer so he knows a thing or two about how screwed we will end up being. I’m curious to see how he manages to differentiate his work from the obvious Terminator stuff. There’s room in the genre for a more subtle approach. Daniel has written about our future robotic enslavement before as I need not remind you. He schooled us all in such notable works as the Nobel price winning “How to Survive a Robot Uprising: Tips on Defending Yourself Against the Coming Rebellion,” and of course his Pulitzer winner “How To Build a Robot Army: Tips on Defending Planet Earth Against Aliens, Ninjas, and Zombies,”. Both are required reading in your finer British Ivy plastered institutions of higher learning worldwide.